On Sunday evening I checked the flats at Havre de Grace. Low tide was not full until 8:30, so the flat was still increasing in size as the light failed. Birds were still coming in when I left. Highlights include: Great Blue Heron 45 Bald Eagle 9 (1 ad; 8 imm) Killdeer 25 Semipalmated Plover 6 Lesser Yellowlegs 1 Short-billed Dowitcher 1 Least Sandpiper 18 Semi/Western Sandpiper 3 Pectoral Sandpiper 1 RUDDY TURNSTONE 1 (first of fall) Ring-billed Gull 600 Great Black-backed Gull 125 Laughing Gull 22 Caspian Tern 60 Forster's Tern 400 (by far the largest count of fall) Shorebirds and terns were in low numbers when I arrived at 7:00 p.m. On Tursday evening (July 29), Dave Webb and I checked the flats and had, among the same number of gulls, 1 first-summer LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL, the first since May, and a full adult breeding-plumaged BONAPARTE'S GULL, the first I have even seen in Maryland in July and presumably a record arrival date for the county. We also had 3 SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS, 4 SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, 125 LEAST SANDPIPERS, 6 SEMI/WESTERN SANDPIPERS, 45 KILLDEER, and a flyby flock of shorebirds that had what was almost certainly a WILSDON'S PHALAROPE in it, but it did not stop and we did not confirm the ID. On both Thursday and on Sunday (see above) I checked the ponds at Lakeside Blvd. On both days there were numerous Killdeer, several Solitary Sandpipers, 3 Least Sandpipers, 3 Great Egrets, and the male Ring-necked Duck. On Sunday there was also a subadult Double-crested Cormorant in the large pond. Rick "Whenever nature creates something that cannot possibly be confused with something else, it immediately creates something very like it; if nature abhors a vacuum, it simply loathes and detests an unmistakable species." -- Miles Kington Rick Blom rblom@blazie.com 4318 Cowan Place Belcamp, Maryland 21017 (410)575-6086